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Re: Why does a violin sound different than a guitar?

Posted by Inmate51 on April 17, 2007 at 09:52:28

In Reply to: Why does a violin sound different than a guitar? posted by benhen on April 15, 2007 at 17:39:30:

A guitar is generally plucked. A violin is generally bowed, although sometimes plucked. Since this difference is obvious, I will assume that you are referring to the difference in the overall sound quality of the instruments.

The answer is that each instrument produces different levels of various overtones along with the fundamental tone. This is referred to as the "acoustic spectrum" or "timbre" of the instrument, and can be seen in graphical form as a spectrogram.

Using the violin as an example, if we set a reference level as the level of the fundamental tone of a note (let's take A-440), the level of the second harmonic (first overtone) may be approximately 10 to 12 dB lower, and the third harmonic may be approximately 15 dB lower.

Contrast this to an acoustic guitar, where the second harmonic may be several dB LOUDER than the fundamental, and the third harmonic may be approximately equal in level.

Obviously, these relative levels vary from one model to another, which is why not all violins sound the same.

In other words, each instrument produces overtones at many frequencies, and it is the relative level of each overtone which produces the instrument's characteristic "timbre", or sound quality.

Now that you've received many responses to your question, it is up to you to decide which 2 or 3 of them actually contain pieces of useful and accurate information, and which ones are "full of it". But since you asked the question, you're really not in a position to "grade the papers", are you? Which is why I suggest you find a good authoritative book on the acoustics of musical instruments. A good starting point is Harry Olson's "Music, Physics and Engineering", available from Amazon.com.

HTH

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